Spokane Residents Smuggle Dish Washing Soap

The quest for clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties mandated by Washington state law don’t work. Spokane County has the nation’s strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010.

Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe’s left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.

As a result, there has been a rush of Spokane-area shoppers heading east on Interstate 90 into Idaho in search of every day soap.

Real estate agent Patti Marcotte of Spokane stocks up on detergent at a Costco in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and doesn’t care who knows it.

“Yes, I am a smuggler,” she said. “I’m taking my chances because dirty dishes I cannot live with.”

Marcotte said she tried every green brand in her dishwasher and found none would remove grease and pieces of food, she said.

Spokane resident Ken Beck has taken to washing his dishes on his machine’s pots-and-pans cycle, which takes longer and uses five gallons more water. Beck wonders if that isn’t as tough on the environment as phosphates.

“How much is this really costing us?” Beck said. “Aren’t we transferring the environmental consequences to something else?”

A bill on Capitol Hill would impose a nationwide ban.